Rushing into May

Four weeks ago, April
seemed to stretch out so long and open before me. An early
spring!, I
enthused. More fresh garden produce even earlier --- I could
almost taste it.

And
now April is pretty much over and I'm just as behind in garden chores
as I always am at this time of year. Yes, despite copious mulch,
there's still a need for a lot of spring maintenance. An
unfortunate number of the beds that I direct-seeded this spring, now
look like this --- weeds nearly overtaking their contents, itching to
be weeded and mulched.

I figure a solid week of
maintenance would catch me right up, but, of course, next week is May. In case you don't put
out a big summer garden, I guess I should explain that May is when we
plant a quarter of our crops. Vegetables slated to go in the
ground next week include basil, green beans, sweet corn, cucumbers,
mung beans, okra, peppers (transplanted), summer squash, and
watermelons.

Since the 10 day
forecast looks warm and I
started some tomatoes inside early, I'll also be transplanting
some of our tomatoes, although I won't put out the last half until
after the frost free date. In fact, I set out two tommy-toes and
two slicers Wednesday in hopes of extra-early fruit.

The good news is that
the same warm weather that made the weeds grow so fast has also spurred
on my early spring
crops. As you
can see in the first photo in this post, this year's Swiss chard is
nearly big enough to eat, and we've already taken two cuttings from our
tokyo bekana. That means I can set aside the over-wintered Swiss
chard (pictured above) to save for seed and still enjoy fresh greens.

We're
floating in a sea of lettuce and arugula and the peas look like they
might bloom pretty soon. Broccoli bounced right back from frost-nipping, and the onions we started
from seed are suddenly growing like crazy.

And then there's this
strawberry I've had my eye on. There are only two berries in the
whole garden with even a blush of red, and I'm waiting for a sunny
afternoon so we can enjoy the most ripe one at its peak. Do you
think Mark would notice if it went missing? Maybe he was looking
forward to this day when he taught me that shared food tastes better.

Our chicken waterer makes it easy to leave home
without worrying about your flock. Unfortunately, I can't help
you with the backlogged weeding.

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